Re: How to restore over an existing DB

RobbMic..._at_gmail.com wrote:
> We are using Oracle 10g release2. We have a database csv5.dmp and want
> to restore it over CSV5, a database currently on our Oracle server. We
> get the errors below when trying to restore it. We are not very
> familiar with Oracle and I imagine the answer is simple?
>
> imp sys/oracle file=csv5.dmp full=y
> We get the error ->
> IMP-00003 oracle error 1435
> ORA-01435 user does not exist
>
> imp fromuser = sys/oracle to user sys/oracle file=csv5.dmp full=y
> We get the error ->
> IMP-00058 Oracle error 1017
> ORA-01017 Invalid user name password
> User does not exist ORA-01435

cvs5.dmp is NOT a database, it is an export! (which is a *logical* dump)
Basically you can not 'restore' an export, as the export is just a series of INSERTs. So you can also not 'restore' it *over* an existing database, without dropping the existing users.
There are several export types. Only a *full* export contains create user statements.
As you get an error for a non-existing user, you don't have a full export, but an user export.
You can verify this by
imp <username>/<password> full=y show=y log=<any file> This will dump all commands which are going to be executed in <any file>
If the user is missing, use the CREATE USER statement to precreate the user.

-- 
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA